What does it mean to hydrate an object?

Question

When someone talks about hydrating an object, what does that mean?

I see a Java project called Hydrate on the web that transforms data between different representations (RDMS to OOPS to XML). Is this the general meaning of object hydration; to transform data between representations? Could it mean reconstructing an object hierarchy from a stored representation?

Answer 1

While it is somewhat redundant vernacular as Merlyn mentioned, in my experience it refers only to filling/populating an object, not instantiating/creating it, so it is a useful word when you need to be precise.